Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(84)
“So you’re saying you don’t know where it is, either?”
“Look, the four of us made a boyhood pact, a blood oath on our friendship, that we would hide what we’d found—”
“What we’d found,” she interrupted. “If you found that pendant and mask Paul drew, you were in the mound!”
“But we vowed never to tell anyone, never to sell them, no matter what. And sit down. You’re driving me crazy.”
She sank onto the edge of the coffee table so she was facing him but was out of his reach. Had she gotten too close to this man? Was she the one who was crazy to think she loved him when he stood in the way of everything she wanted—or thought she did? The crazy thing was she wanted to throw herself into his arms right now.
“But you’re men, not boys,” she argued, trying to keep calm. “Times are different. Can’t you, Brad and Todd decide to hand the artifacts over, even let the mound be carefully, respectfully excavated? Were there two or four relics your grandfather brought out? When you found them as a boy, maybe hidden in your attic, Todd got the ax head, Brad the arrowhead, but you and Paul... Grant, do you have the mask, since Nadine seems to know nothing about this?”
“You have it all figured out, Professor, so you tell me. You might as well make things up as you go.”
“I can’t believe you’re so stubborn.”
“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”
“All right, here’s another theory, since you refuse to deal in facts. I think you were probably the alpha male of the buddy group. Older than Brad, and it was on your property, with your peer group, so you got first pick of the relics.”
“Love the language. Alpha male, buddy group. Very social worker-ish. Isn’t that your sister Char’s bailiwick?”
“Stop always trying to change the subject. Worse, you’re starting to snipe at me like Carson, and I’m done with him.”
“I like the sound of that at least.”
Ignoring that, she plunged on. “So, of the small eagle pendant and the large, scary-looking mask, you took the mask, right?”
He heaved a huge sigh. “Right,” he said.
She finally took a deep breath. She realized it was a good thing she was sitting down when he blurted out the truth for once, a chink in the barriers he’d built against her. They stared hard into each other’s eyes.
“You want to see it, follow me,” he said.
He got up and strode out of the room so fast, she was shocked again. She scooped up the mask she’d made for comparison, just in case he tried to pass off a fake on her.
She could hardly keep up. He headed for the basement door, turned the light on and thudded down the stairs. She hesitated one moment at the top. Why had he finally given in, even a little bit? She could trust him, couldn’t she, if she went down there with him? He did care for her—that was a fact, wasn’t it?
She hurried downstairs behind him. He had gone into the game room, where her own mask had been on the Ping-Pong table until today. Though he clicked on the overhead light there, he also produced a flashlight. He went back out to the furnace and was on his knees, feeling under it, until he produced a small, metal box from which he took a key. She hovered in the doorway then went over to put her mask back in its box on the Ping-Pong table before joining him again.
In the game room, he slid away a hutch with boyhood sports trophies on its shelves. She expected to see a safe in the wall, but it was only more oak paneling. He pulled out five loose planks to reveal masonry brick beneath. He picked up a huge hook that looked like a weapon. She backed up another step though she wanted to watch his every move.
A terrible possibility hit her. Could Grant and Paul have argued over keeping their relics hidden? Paul needed money, but then, Brad, maybe Todd, did, too, so did they threaten to sell their artifacts, and Grant had to stop them? No, she was thinking crazy things. But was anything crazy if Grant Mason actually produced an authentic Beastmaster mask from his basement, when she’d been sleeping so near the object of her desires—other than him—these past ten nights?
She moved closer as he slid the big, old hook into a slight split in the masonry. A long crack there outlined three blocks that he slid out. From that space, he pulled a three-foot-square black metal box. It didn’t look dusty or dented; he must have had it out recently. And with it, slid out one of her business cards.
“What’s that doing there—my card?”
“Call me crazy—or in love. I thought if anything happened to me, someone would know to call you—to let you deal with this.”
As furious as she was with him, that hit her hard. She blinked back tears and couldn’t speak as he unlocked the box and lifted the large lid. She came close—too close that she blocked out the ceiling light. She took his flashlight off the floor and trained the light on the box as she knelt beside him, and he pulled out crushed tissue paper. Her hand was trembling; the beam of light bounced.
“Is this what you want from me?” he asked. “This and the mound? I was hoping it was something else, more fool me.”
He slid the big box at her, and she lifted the last layer of paper. She gasped.
Staring up at her, it was so big and horrible and so beautiful! In her poor rendition of it, she had the size all wrong, but if it had been intended for the tomb and an afterlife, of course it would be large.